Best way to downconvert 720pHD to DV Pal

Our company recently just purchased HD cameras and we have started shooting and editing in 720p25. We will be broadcasting the videos in DV PAL, but we will be putting them online in HD.
I have just completed the edit, and am now facing working out the best method to downconvert the HD to DV Pal.

The program goes to air in 36hours, so I need to work this out pronto.

Cheers, I choose to go with compressor. I do seem to get some distortion on some of my graphics, 98% looks ok though. ALso get sime slight jagged edges on video foogtage when viewed on a CRT? I have compressor settings set to the highest quality in all options (frame controls included). Im also converting it to apple pro res and then putting it into a dv pal timeline. Found the quality to be much better this way.

I've heard talk over 720p25 being better to shoot in if converting to SD at the end, rather than shooting in 1080p? Whats the reasons for this?

[Craig Ricker]"I do seem to get some distortion on some of my graphics, 98% looks ok though"
You need to play your DV PAL as Anamorphic.

[Craig Ricker]"ALso get sime slight jagged edges on video foogtage when viewed on a CRT?"
That's DV with graphics.

[Craig Ricker]"I've heard talk over 720p25 being better to shoot in if converting to SD at the end, rather than shooting in 1080p? Whats the reasons for this?"

First because, at the same data-rate, a picture at 720p25 has more info/pixel than a 1080p25.
More quality.
Then because you will be processing tons of info that will be trashed when you downscale.
And third because downscaling is not just discharging or averaging pixels. The most you downscale the image, the most complicated will get to calculate the new values and depending of the filters used the results will vary very much.
FCS doesn't shine at all on this.
So shoot 1080 if you need to zoom all that picture, if not, shoot 720. You still have room to re-frame and zoom and pan a little.
rafael

Quote
"First because, at the same data-rate, a picture at 720p25 has more info/pixel than a 1080p25.
More quality.
Then because you will be processing tons of info that will be trashed when you downscale.
And third because downscaling is not just discharging or averaging pixels. The most you downscale the image, the most complicated will get to calculate the new values and depending of the filters used the results will vary very much.
FCS doesn't shine at all on this.
So shoot 1080 if you need to zoom all that picture, if not, shoot 720. You still have room to re-frame and zoom and pan a little.
rafael"

1. From my tests shooting in 720p it is indeed the same bit rate of 35Mbps but I see no noticeable difference between it and the 720p. Is there a hidden benefit to the higher bit rate per pixel?

2. So would we not be better of shooting in the 1080p in a 720p sequence so we can use pans and zooms. Does FCP cause a high lose of quality when it automatically uses the scale function to reduce the 1080p to fit into a 720p sequence.

3. If using the scale function in fcp to do pans and zooms do we create poor quality as the scale travels through uneven divisions of the original i.e as you go from 80 to 100% its gonna pass through 87.73% which is not an even factor.

4. Our final product is gonna be SD (DV PAL) on tape for broadcast and DVD authoring, but a 360p and a 720p for online viewing. So just trying to confirm your thoughts on the quality difference between down rezzing from 1080 to 720 in fcp and then to sd pal via compressor.